Business

Netflix is spending big time to become the dominant video streaming player in the nascent Web-TV world. On Wednesday, Netflix announced it has reached an agreement with Walt Disney to stream ABC programs through its online service. The deal reportedly will last one year with an option to extend for ...

At Google's Chrome OS event and demo on Tuesday, one of the participants was Amazon. The company chose this venue -- a competitor's product strategy launch -- to introduce an upgrade to its own go-to-market approach: the Kindle Web app. Now users can buy and read entire books from their browser with...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in his 1964 Order that he could not use words to describe pornography but "I know it when I see it." Even though judges may not be able to define "social media," they generally understand the complex circumstances in legal disputes. However, s...

After months of speculation, Google's ebookstore opened for business on Monday, revealing answers to questions about what it will offer and the formats it will support. As well as providing books for sale, Google has made some of its vast collection of out-of-copyright books available for free, incl...

Google is tightening its copyright and piracy protection procedures, instituting new measures that will facilitate Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests and will better oversee search advertisers that use copyrighted or trademarked terms. Specifically, Google will roll out four changes:...

The bones of a plan to balance consumer privacy and businesses' need to gather data online was aired yesterday by the Federal Trade Commission and was greeted with both praise and criticism. In a 122-page preliminary report, the agency called for any company collecting or using consumer data that ca...

Having an actively engaged, independent board is a must for the long-term viability of any corporation. Unfortunately, there are still many management teams that feel that their prospects for long-term employment, as well as generous salaries and perks, are dependent upon a "friendly" board of direc...

The Apple iPad, rather than Amazon's Kindle, will likely benefit most from the strong demand for e-readers, according to a recent ChangeWave Research report. The ChangeWave survey of more than 2,800 consumers found that 47 percent are interested in the Kindle, a 15-point drop from a similar survey i...

The European Commission has opened an antitrust probe of Google for allegedly discriminating against competing search services by restricting its advertising partners from placing ads on their sites. It also is investigating whether Google has restricted advertisers from moving their data to competi...

An internal struggle has broken out at the FCC over Chairman Julius Genachowski's surprise announcement minutes before midnight Wednesday that he intends to pursue a full Commission vote on Net neutrality rules four days before Christmas. "I strongly oppose this ill-advised maneuver," said FCC Commi...

Google is about to go head-to-head with Amazon and Apple as it readies an e-book store that will debut before the end of the year. Named "Google Editions," the service will be an outgrowth of its Google Books project that allows users to browse and preview titles. The news surfaced on the Google ...

PCI DSS has evolved substantially since the five major credit card holders got together to publish a consolidated security standard in 2006. The standard has been updated regularly with the most recent version, PCI DSS 2.0, released in October 2010. PCI is here to stay, and the requirements are only...

Level 3 Communications on Monday complained when Comcast demanded the content delivery network pay a recurring fee for transmitting online moves and games to Comcast customers. Level 3 said the move violates the principles of Net neutrality. Comcast notified Level 3 on November 19 that it would begi...

Rumors are spinning across the e-commerce and investment banking world that Google will snap up Groupon. Though the talk started weeks ago, it has acquired new credibility with a news report claiming an unnamed insider confirmed the deal. Groupon is a shopping website that offers a daily deal on loc...

Competition has been increasing in the cable television world in recent years, and we have been expecting prices to come down, but they haven't. I have been scratching my head wondering why competition from satellite and telephone companies wasn't working. Well, it's taken years, but apparently the ...